Carrier route record
OHCLE→DCA
PSA Airlines · Cleveland to Washington
- Flights
- 1,434
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 89%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.
PSA on CLE to DCA carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 8.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,434 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so PSA on CLE to DCA runs 11 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 110 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
66.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,312 completed flights
Avg delay
104 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
8.51%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
65.6%
Every carrier on CLE to DCA, 1,609 flights
These figures cover 1,434 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
PSA against every carrier on CLE to DCA
PSA flew 1,434 of the 1,609 flights on CLE to DCA, most of the route. Its 66.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 65.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 85.7% to Envoy at 53.4%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 7 | 85.7% | 17 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 19 | 84.2% | 30 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 1,434 | 66.6% | 104 min | 8.51% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 149 | 53.4% | 61 min | 2.01% | F |
Departure window
When PSA runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 44 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am325 flights83.3%
- 8am–11am300 flights81.6%
- 11am–2pm153 flights65.8%
- 2pm–5pm220 flights57.6%
- 5pm–8pm274 flights52.0%
- 8pm–5am162 flights39.6%
Scale runs 30% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 39.6% on time, against 83.3% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 325 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on CLE to DCA through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 78.6% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. August was the busiest month here, with 137 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 75.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 56.2%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why PSA runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 46,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 46,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 47 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 45,709 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 83.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 8.51%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twelve cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 15.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 310 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 64.4% on time across 1,433 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,434 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking PSA on CLE to DCA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 8.51% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,312 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLE to DCA, every carrier
- PSA on DCA to CLE, the return leg
- Envoy Air on CLE to DCA53.4%
- PSA Airlines network-wide record
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.